The Old House at Coate

Help Disney Volunteers prepare the gardens and orchard of the Richard Jefferies Museum

Today will see an army of volunteers, led by Disney’s VoluntEARS, descending on the gardens of the Richard Jefferies Museum at Coate Water.

And they would love you to join them!

Hidden gem:
Richard Jefferies Museum

The volunteers will be helping to prepare the gardens and orchard of the Richard Jefferies Museum at the Coate Water Country Park, for a special opening the following weekend as part of National Heritage Open Days.

The museum, sometimes affectionately called ‘The Old House at Coate’, is contained within a beautiful old farmhouse where Victorian naturalist and writer Richard Jefferies was born in 1848.

For many years the museum, gardens and orchard have been quietly hidden away in a corner of the Country Park, resulting in a little know and poorly used asset for the town that needs a little TLC to bring it back to its former glory.

The volunteers will be laying gravel paths, cutting back foliage, replacing and repairing fencing, putting together new benches and generally pruning, clearing and tidying up the gardens and orchards. All of this work is in preparation for the grand opening of the Museum on Sunday 12th September.

The opening is part of English Heritage’s National Heritage Open Days, an initiative which sees buildings of every age, style and function, ranging from castles to factories, town halls to tithe barns, parish churches to Buddhist temples, throw open their doors for four days in September.

If you would like to help get one of Swindon’s best kept secrets ready for the people of the town to enjoy please come along on Tuesday 7th September from 10.30 AM to 4.00 PM – all help will be well received.

If you can’t make it, come along to the opening and the tranquillity of The Old House at Coate, its beautiful gardens and fascinating insight into Victorian life – you can even enjoy a cream tea alfresco.

To get there simply follow the signs to the Coate Water Country Park and follow the signs from the car park and the lake itself.

More information about the museum and Richard Jefferies can be found via the website below...